taurusowner:What does a well known robbery tactic have to do with urban myths? That's like saying leaving your garage door unlocked in the daytime while you're at work is a good way to get burglarized is a myth. Criminals like easy targets, whether the be people or buildings. Some things make one an easy target and criminals look for those things. Some thing makes one a harder target and criminals look for those things too, to avoid them. That's not an urban myth. It happens thousands of times a night all over the country in small towns and big cities.

Select an easy targetClose the distanceDistract the target and make the final attack/don't attack decisionMake your move.

That's how virtually every robbery works. Know this, and know how to avoid it.

"Go head and reach under your coat or shirt, give them a stare and say 'I can't help you sir, good bye'"

paranoia is rooted in the same hysteria that allows those ridiculous urban legends to spread.

You know what will "probably" happen if someone asks for directions and you don't act like a belligerent terrified prick to them and instead actually give them directions? They'll say "thank you" and go to the place they were looking for.

Have people ever used directions, time, or some other innocuous pretext to ambush someone? Sure. But it's no excuse for imagining you're living in a Road Warrior movie and acting like a misanthropic tool..

As someone else already said, hysteria like this is why the world sucks. You're not reacting to the world, you're creating it. Making it worse. Creating the illusion that people are lurking around each and every corner all day every day just waiting to get you, and even the simplest request for assistance is most likely an assault on your well-being.

By spreading that sort of baseless paranoia, you're unnecessarily encouraging people to be more mistrustful, isolated, and jaded... encouraging them to irrationally fear and loathe their fellow man.

If you are a cop and you're face to face with the shiatty underbelly and the dirtbags of the world every day, my condolences, sincerely. But it's not the real world. It's only one sliver of it. You're like a proctologist. You've chosen a job which puts you in the company of assholes far more frequently than the norm. It skews your perceptions.

As a cop and CPL holder I am of two minds of this. Though to be clear the man who drew the pistol was wrong, acted criminally, and should be arrested./b>

That being said, asking for directions is VERY often part of what is called the "interview". An robber selects and victim who appears to be weak, the approach them with something innocuous in order to close the distance, and to gauge how aware the victim is. Typically this will be asking for a ride, bus fare, help carrying something, and yes, directions. How the victim responds lets the robber know how easy this will be and helps distract them. When the victime looks at their phone to see what time it is, reaches in their pockets for change, etc, that's when the strike happens. Either the robber working alone, or often with a partner out of sight, What happens next can very very brutal and often fatal. This isn't like movies or tv. It's not Joe Chill nervously pointing a gun at Bruce Wayne's parents, or Marshal in "How I Met Your Mother" getting held up in the park. More often than not, the first clue that the victim is being held up is the massive blunt force trauma to the head.

It is VERY smart to be wary of any stranger approaching you on the street and asking you for something. "Don't talk to strangers" isn't just for kids. If you look and act like a soft target, you'll probably lose your phone, money, keys, watch and anything else of value. And maybe your life.

So, reacting with a degree of alarm, wariness, and even aggression to someone asking for directions is actually a very purudent thing to do. As is carrying a conceal pistol.BUT that should always stop short of drawing your pistol when there is no actual threat yet. Go head and reach under your coat or shirt, give them a stare and say "I can't help you sir, good bye". Let them know that you know what is up. Show them that it's not going to be easy. Make them aware that they might not win this one. But don't break the law yourself. And brandishing a firearm is a crime.

Asking for directions/the time/change for a dollar is a time honored "interview" used by thugs before initiating a robbery. The criminal will use the opportunity offered by someone answering the question to close distance and assault the person... otherwise you are on your guard to somebody invading your personal space. I can believe that the person doing the asking may have appeared to be troublesome, or even was actually planning something and called the police to get back at somebody who wouldn't have the kindness to let himself be robbed.

Still, even as one licensed to carry a concealed weapon I know there's folks out there who are looking for trouble and inventing it when they don't find any. I can also believe that the person doing the asking was innocent and the person who pulled the gun was overreacting.

the complainant told an officer with the Winder Police Department that he had asked an unknown white male for directions. The complainant said the stranger then pulled a pistol out of his holster and responded, "No I don't have directions."

ya, and had it been a black guy showing a pistol... the media would make it: "an unknown male"

oukewldave:I like how people ask for directions without even trying to find it and inconvenience the first person they see who is minding their own business jogging with their headphones on. I'm frequently harassed by old people trying to find the emissions test place when it is right down the road with signs everywhere. Look it up ahead of time! I'm not stopping my workout to help you.

j.zero:This has been my response when someone asked if I had change for a $20, oh and also it was a group of 5-6 teenage black males who witnesses later told me had concealed themselves with the purpose of ambushing me as I walked by. Just saying.

Mikey1969:LeroyBourne: I was always told when visiting Chicago if you're in a questionable neighborhood and a person asks you for directions, and you have no idea where he wants to go it's a sure fire way they know you're not from around there, and you may get mugged.

Yeah, this guy doesn't get to use that excuse, according to my Google Powers, Winder, GA has something like 14,000 people. Pretty sure it's not a mugging...

Yup, just your garden variety tiny-dicked redneck hoping that a firearm and an unnecessarily belligerent attitude will make up for his intellectual and penile shortcomings.